2. Second Opinion

253. [Exposition of the opinion] - Another position [of Peter of Tarantsia and Romanus of Rome, based on sayings of Thomas Aquinas] is that this relation of an angel [and of any creature] to God differs really from the essence of the angel [and any creature].

254. There is confirmation of this from blessed Augustine On the Trinity 5.5 n.6, where he says that in the case of creatures “what is not spoken of as substance is left to be spoken of as accident;” and he argues that in this case of creatures relation is an accident.

255. He also expressly maintains this in the same place 5.16 n.17, “Those things are relative accidents that occur with some change in the things of which they are said,” and he means from this that the relation of creature to God is an accident, but that the relation said relatively of God to creature is not an accident in God.

256. And from this he says more expressly toward the end, “That God begins to be called in time what he was not called before is manifestly said relatively; however it is not said as an accident of God (because something happens to him), but plainly as an accident of that in reference to which God begins to be relatively called something.”

257. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this:

Substance is said to be prior to accident in three ways (according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 7.1.1028a31-33), namely in knowledge, in definition, and in time; and what it is to be prior in time is so understood that there is no contradiction on the part of substance to prevent it being able to exist prior in duration to any accident; so there would be no contradiction in a stone’s being prior in duration to all dependence on

God, and as a result there would be no contradiction in a stone’s not depending on God, which seems absurd.a

a.a [Interpolation] Or thus: if the relation of creature to God is other than the creature, it is naturally posterior to the creature; but what is prior in nature can exist without what is naturally posterior -as far as it itself is concerned - without contradiction; therefore a stone can exist without a respect to God - therefore it can exist without a term for the respect, which includes a contradiction. The first proposition, the major, is plain, because a relation cannot be prior; for a relation, being founded on the absolute, cannot exist prior to it - nor can it exist simultaneously in nature with it, for the same reason; therefore it is posterior, because it is an accident of it. The second proposition, the minor, is plain, because the idea of ‘naturally prior’ is that - as far as concerns itself - it can be without the other, and in this way, according to the Philosopher, substance precedes accident.

258. Further, Augustine is either taking ‘accident’ generally there [nn.254-56] for anything changeable - and then any created substance is an accident, because it is changeable; or he is taking it there for what is changeable, that is, able to be lost (namely because it can be lost when something remains, and because it is posterior in nature or in duration to the something that remains); if in this second way, then the relation of creature to God is not an accident, because a creature cannot remain either in duration or in nature without that relation.

259. And it seems that Augustine is speaking in this way in 5.4 n.5, in the way some accidents are inseparable: “Just as the color of a raven’s feather is black - but it loses the color, not indeed as long as it is a feather, but because it is not always a feather. Wherefore the material itself of the feather is changeable, and because it ceases to be a feather, so it loses the color also.”a The loss of color however is not a change, because thus indeed the loss of the feather would be a change; but the loss of color is a loss, because just as the feather is prior in nature to the blackness, so too it could be posterior in nature to the blackness, that is, not be at once corrupted together with the corruption of the blackness.

a.a [Interpolation] because while the raven remains it cannot lose the blackness, but it can lose feathers and certain other things.